Springfield Falcons beat Worcester Sharks in overtime

WORCESTER – Taylor Chorney’s goal with 3.6 seconds remaining in overtime gave the Springfield Falcons a hard-fought 4-3 win over the Worcester Sharks before 2,162 at the DCU Center.

Chorney’s goal, his fourth of the season, came on an odd-man rush, while the teams were skating 3-on-3.

It came on a wrister from the left circle, and eluded Worcester goalie Tyson Sexsmith, to provide the Falcons their second victory in 23 games, a miserable stretch dating to Nov. 21.

“I looked at ’Pou’ [Marc Pouliot] right away,“ said Chorney. “I realized there wasn’t a whole lot of time left, and I kind of saw the right side of the net and shot it. I was actually going high glove, but it ended up going low. I’ll take it.“

The win was the final twist in a game that saw the Falcons haul back from a pair of one-goal third period deficits.

Taylor Chorney

The teams swapped power-play goals, although both pucks were actually put in the net by Worcester defenseman Mike Moore.

Springfield took a 1-0 lead at 15:42 of the first period, when Liam Reddox’s shot from the right point rattled off a scrum in front of Sharks’ goalie Tyson Sexsmith, before Moore unwittingly tucked it into his own net

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It was Reddox’s seventh goal of the season.

Moore earned a measure of redemption when at 5:43 of the second stanza his right point drive traveled through a screen and past Falcons netminder J.P. Levasseur.

It marked a 15-minute opening stretch of the period that saw Springfield outshot by a lopsided 11-1 margin (it wound up 12-3).

Scrambly play in front of the Springfield net led to Andrew Desjardins’ goal at 6:04 of the third period, which gave Worcester its first lead.

Desjardins was allowed to set up in the low slot, where he unloaded a 10- footer that Levasseur slowed, but didn’t stop.

That was answered 2:01 later by Rob Hisey, who scored while he was being dragged down in front of the Worcester net, making it 2-2.

T.J. Trevelyan restored the Sharks lead, at 9:14, with a stuffer inside the left post, but the Falcons weren’t ready to fold.

Moments after being robbed blind by a Sexsmith glove save, Hisey banked his second of the night in off Sexsmith’s skate with 4:24 left in regulation, making it 3-3.

“It’s shows a lot of character,” Chorney said. “We were down twice in the third period and we battled back. Showed what our team’s made of. Hopefully a game like this is something we can build on.”

“It was Hisey’s sixth goal in eight games as a Falcon.

If nothing else, the contest allowed center Marc Pouliot, down from Edmonton on a reconditioning stint, to see his first live action of the season.Pouliot, who spent most of the 2007-08 campaign with the Falcons, underwent sports hernia surgery in the offseason.

He spent much of the night playing between wingers Liam Reddox and Colton Fretter, as well as working on the No. 1 power play unit.

“Physically I felt good,” Pouliot said. “The game timing and the tempo, as you play you get it. Physically, my injury is healed.”

EMPTY NETTERS: The Falcons’ lineup sported a few other new/old faces besides Pouliot. Defenseman Theo Peckham, out since Dec. 11 with a head injury, saw his first action since then ... The chances of goaltender Devan Dubnyk returning to Springfield grew much slimmer when the parent Edmonton Oilers announced that No. 1 netman, Nikolai Khabibulin, would be forced to undergo surgery on his herniated disc and could miss the rest of the season. Dubnyk, who has been moving back and forth between the clubs since Khabibulin was shelved in mid-November, will stay up top for the foreseeable future.